Lots of stories to share this week, with our radio active crew of John Monahan and Marian Sun McNamee, aka Mrs. Future. For starters, the Consumer Electronics Show is in full swing right now, with a whole pavilion dedicated to Drones, another to 3D printers, another to cars, personal transporters, etc. Mercedes-Benz made a big splash by debuted their new autonomous concept car at CES, bascially a vision of the traveling living room, not unlike a luxurious train cabin. In their protoype car, driving is an option, and all seats are fully 360 degree rotatable. As Charlie pointed out to me at the beginning of today’s show, “in the early days of automobiles, the driver was on the outside of the cab.” And stage coaches before that. And flying carpets before that. Well, maybe not, but you know what I mean. So, a mobile social space? Sounds good!

The recent release of the heavily redacted CIA report on the U2 and SR-71 spyplane is also quite fascinating, delving deeply into the top secret world of the Cold War, the scintillating history of aerial surveillance, the creation of our amazing spy planes and a compelling expanation for many UFO sitings by pilots. (Blue book officials were not allowed to divulge info of U2 and SR-71 flight paths).

We also discuss a different way to view Artificial Intelligence, as suggested by Ray Kurzweil in a recent article in Time. Fear the machine?. Good luck with that..